All posts by Vas Taras
The X-Culture Global Symposium and the U.S. Visas
As we are getting ready for the X-Culture Symposium in Miami in July, one issue we have to deal with is the U.S. visa. Out of hundreds of applicants, we eventually narrowed our roster to 150 top-notch students from 54 countries. Most either did not need a U.S. visa or easily obtained one. However, some…
You can’t step in the same (Facebook) River Twice
Following up on my earlier post on X-Culture’s experiences with Facebook (10 Things I’ve Learned About Facebook), here is another lesson we learned through trial and error. As noted earlier, some of our posts turned out to be widely popular. The first major hit was a series of Entrepreneurfail.com cartoons posted on December 12, 2015. In…
Hell Week
The Navy SEAL “Hell Week” is the third week of the famously grueling BUD/S training. The official description reads, “Hell Week tests physical endurance, mental toughness, teamwork, attitude, and your ability to perform work under high physical and mental stress, and sleep deprivation.” It is a perfect description of the last week of each X-Culture…
A student story
Just saw J.T. Hinson, one of our former X-Culture participants. He participated in the competition last year. His story is very inspiring. His team still stays in touch and communicates on a regular basis. After his team won the X-Culture Competition, his employer was so impressed with J.T.’s work that he offered to pay J.T.’s…
Plagiarism and Academic Referencing Styles
Wednesday, April 26 10 to 11 am (EST New York time zone) Topics What is plagiarism and why it is a serious issue Proper ways to reference works of others What is an academic referencing style How to cite work of others using the APA style What to do if TurnItIn.com found plagiarism in the team’s report…
X-Culture Reports: Common Mistakes and Writing Tips
Wednesday, April 26 9 to 10 am (EST New York time zone) Topics Common problems in X-Culture reports Tips on writing a winning report Last-minute changes and updates a team can do to improve the report Presenters Robert Stephens Esi A. Elliot Amanda Bullough Volodymyr Rudov-Tsymbalist Henrik Mertens
Webinars: Our Experience and Remaining Challenges
Recorded video presentations and live webinars are an indispensable tool in a project like X-Culture. Over these years, we’ve experimental with about a dozen platforms, such as WebEx, Zoom, BlackBoard Elluminate, Skype Pro, GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, Adobe Connect, and more. After much testing, we settled for
X-Culture Conference and Networking Event
Wow! It was great! We’ll do it every semester from now on. But let me start from the beginning. So, for a long time, I wanted to provide my students with an opportunity to present their reports at the end of the X-Culture project. Unfortunately, I have 150+ every semester, each on a different team….
Instructor Round Table Webinar: Performance Tracking and Grading
X-Culture Instructor Experience Sharing Webinar Time: Tuesday, April 11, 9 am (EST/New York) Presenters: Round table, everyone is invited as a panelist Topics: Overview of the performance indicators we already track Suggestions for other performance indicators we should track? Commonly used approaches to grading: good or bad and what’s better? Use of peer evaluations to identify…
Instructor Experience Sharing Webinar
X-Culture Instructor Experience Sharing Webinar Time: Wednesday, February 1, at 9 am (EST/New York) Presenters: Tim Muth Vas Taras Other instructors Topics: What is X-Culture and how it works; Benefits for students, instructors and business; What we expect from you in exchange; Corporate partner; Monitoring student performance ; Grading/Marking; Common challenges and best way to address them;…